Chapter Eight #4
Griffin came out from under the nightshirt and stared at her.
She smiled a bit unevenly, clearly embarrassed, then lifted her hands and helped him remove the shirt.
She was the one who flung it away. It sailed over the side of the bed, and before it touched the floor, she’d flung her arms around his neck and held on.
His kiss was hard with need. He was impatient. Hungry. She was glad of it because it matched something inside of her—a need, an impatience, a hunger that was wholly unfamiliar to her. She was depending upon him to show her the way, and if she became afraid, to make her feel less so.
She met his kiss, reveled in it. Her arms circled his back as he moved over her.
His fingers had tunneled into her hair. She felt the press of them against her scalp.
He was devouring her mouth with his own.
Their tongues circled, retreated, circled again.
They separated to gulp air and when they came together a second time, he was planting kisses on her cheeks, her jaw, and over her closed eyes.
She fought him a little, but only so that she might lay claim to some part of his countenance.
She kissed the corners of his mouth, rubbed her lips against the stubble of his beard, and traced the thin line of his scar with the tip of her tongue.
She liked hearing his breath come unevenly and the sensation of his heart stuttering.
His skin was smooth, his shoulders taut.
The muscles of his back shifted and bunched under her fingertips.
She had never held a man in such a way before, never as a partner, an equal.
The curling of desire was uncomfortable.
Foreign. For a moment she felt a little sick with it, then it passed as he cupped her bottom and lifted her.
Just then she could think of nothing save the heaviness of him pressing against her.
He split her thighs. She raised her knees and dug her heels into the mattress. She sucked in a breath, waiting for him to pull back just enough to make his first thrust. She closed her eyes. She could bear this, she thought. With this man, she could make herself bear it.
“Olivia.” He said her name softly, drawing her out of her self-imposed darkness. “Look at me. It’s Griffin. Do you know that?”
She nodded. “Griffin.”
He was absurdly pleased she’d said his name. Not Breckenridge. Not my lord. He kissed her lightly on the lips, surprising them both with the gentleness of it, then he lifted his hips and slowly pushed into her.
She was better able to accommodate his entry this time.
She was damp, if not wet. He measured his thrust carefully, feeling his way by watching her eyes.
The centers of them darkened, widened, then remained that way, a perfect onyx stone set within an emerald.
Once he was seated, he held himself still.
Her lower lip was faintly swollen. His kisses were not entirely responsible for that.
She was pressing her teeth into it now, chewing on it.
He stared at her, shaking his head slightly, and waited for her to release it before he began to move.
He willed himself to go slowly, take infinite care with her.
Whatever she had known before him, it wasn’t care.
Her lashes fluttered but never entirely lay still.
She watched him from beneath her shaded eyes, her head tilted back.
The exposed, slender stem of her neck beckoned him.
He kissed the hollow of her throat, tasted her skin along her bladed shoulder.
Her fingers tripped lightly down his back, riding the ridge of his spine. When he rocked, she held on.
“Lift for me,” he whispered. When she did, he thrust more deeply, and then she was working with him, rising to meet his stroke, not merely holding, but participating.
He knew the moment she felt the first twinge of pleasure, saw it when the twin creases of concentration disappeared between her eyebrows, heard it when her breath caught.
He wanted more for her than a hint of what might be, but his own crisis was nearing.
He held back as long as he was able, feeling the strain of denial across the taut muscles in his back.
His skin no longer fit him but seemed to have shrunk against his bones.
When she raised a hand and touched his face, he imagined he might cut her with the sharpness of his cheek.
Her fingertips grazed his jaw, a faltering siren’s smile edged her swollen mouth, and it was then that his body betrayed him. He ground against her one more time before his strokes came quick and shallow and a shudder took possession of his whipcord-lean frame.
Olivia skimmed the surface of pleasure; Griffin knew the depths of it.
He arched, stretching his coiled muscles as she seemed to contract around him. Her arms. Her legs. Even her mouth closed over him. There, where she held him most intimately, she was especially tight, and he was helpless to withdraw even if he had wanted to. He emptied himself into her.
Olivia expected that he would collapse against her, and she would have to accept the full weight of him. She tensed, preparing herself, then he surprised her again by lowering himself to his elbows and only sheltering her with his body.
He kissed her on the mouth, slowly, deeply, nudging her lips apart, tickling them with his teeth and tongue. It was the sweetly lazy kiss of a sated man, but it was outside Olivia’s experience. When he drew back, she stared at him, wondering what was required of her now.
Griffin sighed, made regretful by what he saw in her face. He smoothed the worry lines across her brow with his fingertips. “There is nothing you must do,” he told her. “Save sleep, if you like.”
He watched her nod and felt her relax a fraction, though her eyes remained alert and mildly wary.
Easing out of her, Griffin rolled to one side and lay on his back.
He placed a forearm across his eyes and allowed himself a moment to bask in the lethargy that came after such intense pleasure.
Almost immediately he felt her stir beside him.
Without lifting his arm, he asked, “What are you doing?”
“Looking for my nightgown.” Unaware of his scowl, she continued patting down the covers in search of the article. When she didn’t find it, she slid to the edge of the bed and groped outside the covers along the floor.
“Why do you need it?”
The question seemed absurd to her, the answer obvious. “I am naked.”
With his free hand, Griffin found the curve of her hip under the bedclothes and laid his hand there. “So you are, as am I. I fail to see that it presents a problem.”
Olivia sat up, dragging the blankets with her.
She noticed that her movement did not dislodge his hand.
The shaft of rosy dawn light that slipped between the drapes was sufficient for her to look about.
She spied her shift on the floor, most of it bunched under the bed.
Conscious of Griffin’s hand, she managed to slip one leg out of bed, snag the gown with the toe of her foot, and kick it high enough to snatch it out of the air.
“Impressive,” Griffin said dryly.
Olivia glanced over at him, but his forearm was once more in place like a blindfold. As soon as she began to raise the shift to slip it over her head, she felt his hand leave her hip. It snaked outside the covers and was presented to her palm up like a platter.
“Give it to me.”
“I did not perform the acrobatics for your amusement,” she said. “It was all in aid of recovering my gown.”
“I’m quite sure it was. Nevertheless, give it to me.”
That he expected she would surrender it so easily galled her. That she did so, galled her more.
He pitched the nightgown over his side of the bed, well outside her reach, then he put out his palm again. “Your robe, also.”
She had hoped he’d forgotten it. It lay bunched at the foot of the bed where he had tossed it after helping her out of it.
She did a little flutter kick under the covers and managed to make the robe jump in her direction.
When it was close enough, she caught it with her fingertips and dragged it toward her and passed it directly on to him.
With his forearm still in place, he did precisely the same thing with it as he’d done with her nightgown. “Come,” he said, patting the space beside him. “Lie down.”
Olivia was not so quick to obey this time. “You said I might sleep if I wished.”
“Of course.”
“But I prefer to do so in my own bed.”
“That presents a bit of a dilemma, don’t you think?” Now he lifted his arm just enough to give her the benefit of his darkly wry look. “Since I prefer that you do so here.”
Unhappy, and too weary to shield it from him, she asked gravely, “Am I to have no say?”
Griffin would not allow himself to be swayed by what he glimpsed in her face.
She did not need to be alone just now, no matter that it was her preference.
He knew the look of someone bent on tormenting herself with second thoughts and recriminations.
He’d seen it often enough in his own reflection.
“You have had your say, have you not? And I have had mine. It is a disagreement, but given the fact that I have already confiscated your gown and your robe, I think it will be settled in my favor. Now, lie down, close your eyes, and appreciate your own victory.”
“My victory?” She burrowed under the covers, though not in the space just beside him. Turning on her side, she drew up her knees protectively. “What nonsense.”
Griffin finally let his arm fall away from his eyes and cast her a sideways glance. “If you will but recall, it was you who wanted to have done with it. And so we are.”
She was glad for the relative darkness that concealed the heat in her cheeks. Still, she heard herself remark with considerable coolness, “It was you who put forth the terms, I believe.”